Thomas
Cooper was a stout defender of the Church of England as distinct from the
Catholic Church. This volume, in which Cooper answers a Catholic defense of
private mass directed against John Jewel, is
characteristic of Cooper’s distaste for Rome. Compiled by the evangelical
Parker Society, this volume also includes the original apology Cooper answers.

Thomas
Cooper
(1517–1594) was bishop of Lincoln and later bishop of Winchester. Cooper’s
influential Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae is believed to have
been used by Shakespeare in the
composition of many of his plays and poems.